Archive for the ‘apocalypse’

Judge Dredd: Origins was published in 2007, although in fact the basic story of how Bad Bob Booth became the last President of the USA and what he did next was established right back at the 1970s beginnings of Dredd’s parent comic 2000AD.

Obviously, actually including the exact phrases “within 45 minutes” and “weapons of mass destruction” might have been a little bit too near the knuckle, but the message comes across just the same: “Here we go again.”

For the last month or so, the Unionist parties have briefly enjoyed the opportunity to taunt the SNP in the Commons over Full Fiscal Autonomy, challenging the party to bring forward proposals and accusing it of being afraid of the policy it campaigned and won on in the election. The Nats called the bluff, and today got the unsurprising result.

Last week we listened to a Radio Scotland phone-in debate on Trident, hosted very deftly by John Beattie, who managed to steer callers away from political points and keep the discussion on the merits or otherwise of the weapons system itself.

Sadly that didn’t dissuade the usual coterie of nutters/local councillors phoning in insisting that (a) North Korea would invade/blast Scotland off the face of the Earth the moment we let our guard down, and (b) Helensburgh would immediately revert to the Stone Age at the loss of jobs were the few hundred Trident sailors who spend about a week every year in the town to be reassigned to other posts in the navy.

We didn’t have time to ring in ourselves, but we did manage to think of a much better idea that solved both of those problems without lumbering Scotland with a gigantic nuclear white elephant, and one that would also free up an awful lot of valuable police time and resources that are currently spent arresting a bunch of hippies.

With the “biggest party forms the government” lie now sunk and rusting slowly on the seabed (weighed down even further by polls suggesting that Labour actually will be the largest party even if they lose all of Scotland to the SNP), and four weeks of campaigning left to fill, Scottish Labour have had to grab a hammer, smash the glass on the “EMERGENCY – IN CASE OF DESPERATION” box and clutch desperately at whatever they found inside.

The abject answer is “Project Fear 2 – This Time It’s Full Fiscal Autonomy”.

It’s worth reminding yourself before you watch this clip from BBC News this morning that the gentleman at the lectern isn’t some rabid Daily Mail columnist, but is in fact the Secretary of State for Defence, Michael Fallon.